Jessie has been working in the beauty and wellness industry since 2003 as a teacher and stylist alongside some of the industry's finest. She is an excellent crafts woman who also loves shags, razor cuts and “lived in” easy to style hair. Some call her a “hair healer” for her intuitive ability to know exactly what your hair needs to be in optimal shape.

In 2018, Jessie opened Salon Benders allowing her to incorporating her knowledge of hair, makeup, abstract painting, reiki and LGBTQ/POC matters to create a one of a kind salon experience.

Jessie has long been disappointed by salon cultures that encourage gender and body shaming. Her mission is to eliminate "superficiality" from the hair industry, one person at a time. She is proud be the creator of an environment that promotes natural beauty, authenticity, empowerment and REALNESS .

How did the initial closure affect your business?

I think the better question here is: How didn't affect our business? I have answered this question so many times and each time I do, I forget something or leave something out because there's just so much.

The first closure put us over 20k in the hole and this is our first year in business. So there's that. I'd just hired 3 amazing stylists and they haven't been able to start work. Before them, I lost 3 stylists over the closing. I've lost many clients because I refuse to do house calls. I have a PPE filled hair salon along with all of the COVID protocols that cost us $3500. That's fucking pointless now. A crispy clean HVAC system, you don't even want to know the amount we spent on that. Literally, I can't go on because I can feel my blood pressure rising.

What was your initial thought when California shut back down? And then state board decided you could do hair outside...

I was stunned. I really didn't think our politicians would close us down because of how greedy they are but, by golly they did!

I was personally okay with the outdoor thing because it gave me an option to make money when I haven't worked in over 5 months. I am paying my home bills, salon bills, insurance, electric and water on both places with no income and no unemployment. So, YES. LET ME WORK. I don't give a shit where.

HOWEVER- I did feel the call to reach out to my local hairstylist community because I am privileged enough to have the space for an outdoor salon. I am opening half of the week for anyone who needs a safe and clean place to work. POC and Mothers to the front.

What is your position on performing services outdoors?

I think it's a band-aid over a bullet hole. Even though it works for me and I was a part of the initial conversation to make it happen, I still think overall, it's a horrible idea but it opens a legal loophole that I intend to use. Give me an inch and I'll take a mile when it comes to saving my business. I think this option was thrown at us and then we were completely forgotten about. HEY FUCKERS- 84% of us have no jobs right now. There are over 600,000 licensed beauty professionals out there with NO OPTION. Also, in my opinion it doesn't allow us to be as hygienic as we could inside. DUMB DUMB DUMB all around.

If you could make changes to the current policy what would they be?

I would go back to the initial way we opened. Slowly and responsibly. Get some local people to put a task force together so we could self regulate and educate. That way we don't need to wait for the government or Board of Cosmo to make more jobs for white people to police us. Yeah, you read that right. We can govern ourselves. I mean look at us, we have been for 4 years now.

I am utterly disgusted with the way this has been handled. The damage to small businesses and hairdressers is nothing short of traumatic and it didn't need to go down like this. I feel like this world is a hot dumpster fire mess right now. Thank GODDESS I am queer and brown because my resilience is real. I believe we will get through this so long as we help each other.